was _heart_ in their worship! they sang every
hymn as if they might sing the next one in Heaven.

_So ought we!_ Are you tired of my sermon?

Well, what do you think I saw here in New-York to-day? A boy of _eight_
years old walking in the street, with his hands in his jacket pockets,
_smoking a cigar_! I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the
little monkey. Finally, I laid my hand on his shoulder and said,

"You don't _like_ that nasty cigar, I hope, my dear child." He blushed,
and taking it out of his mouth, said,

"Yes, I do, but I'll throw it away if you want me to."

"Thank you," said I, "for your politeness, but it is not of myself I
was thinking. I can easily get out of the way of it, you know, but it
is such a shocking bad habit to get into; so young as you are, too. Oh,
you have no idea how much it costs to smoke. You must always offer a
friend one, else he will call you 'a stingy fellow.' Why, my dear boy,
only think, it will take all your pocket money to buy _cigars_. You
forget that by and by, you will want a store in Broadway, full of
goods, and clerks to sell them, and a house to live in, and may be a
wife, too; ah, you needn't laugh, for I don't believe you'll be able to
get a wife if you keep on smoking till you get old enough to be
engaged. By that time you'll be so stupefied, that nobody will have
you!

"Yes, and many a time when you want a pair of new boots, you'll have to
do without them because you can't _possibly_ go without your cigar, and
you haven't money enough for both. Now, I'd just like to know if a
smart little fellow like you is going to be made such a slave of, by a
miserable little dirty roll of tobacco?"

Well, he said he would not smoke any more, but I've been afraid ever
since to turn a corner, for fear I shall see the precocious young man
walking behind a cigar.

Oh, the country is the place for boys,--on a nice farm, where there is
ploughing, and hoeing, and digging, and sowing, and reaping going on;
where they can jump upon a horse, without any saddle, and ride him to
water, with his mane for a bridle; where they can help build fences,
and help make hay, and help milk cows, and drive them to pasture; where
they can go blackberrying, and strawberrying, and chestnuting, and
everything but bird-nesting. I wouldn't like to leave my purse in the
way of a boy who went bird-nesting. I should know he had a bad heart.

Yes, the country is the place for boys. There are no oy